


Into the West

by ibohemianam



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 03:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10822716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibohemianam/pseuds/ibohemianam
Summary: It is 1866, and Jyn Erso finds herself in a Scarif backwater, watching a silent man.





	Into the West

**Author's Note:**

> For [therebelcaptainnetwork](https://therebelcaptainnetwork.tumblr.com/)'s May the Fourth exchange.
> 
> A _Star Wars_ and _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_ remix, so help me.  
>  Title from [Annie Lennox](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shdiTRxTJb4).

Night falls.

The dust settles.

Of bones.

Tales whispered.

Carried by wind.

Of sand.

* * *

They aren’t like the others. Even in this town of outcasts, this place of impossible peace.

They aren’t like the others.

She’s never seen him smile. He’s only heard her laugh.

They circle each other warily--wounded, frightened beasts.

She watches him slump at the table, hat pulled down low over his eyes, dark eyes gleaming in shadow. He watches her slip through the room, seen and unseen, emptying pockets with a smile.

Yesterday, he’d pulled her hand out of his trouser pocket with a bland look of calculated mistrust and returned to his drink, hand lingering, as always, on the gleaming revolver at his side.

She’d never seen him draw before. She’d heard he was quick.

A man of his reputation--he had to be.

Perched on the bar, she watches him now clean out a group of farmhands, the last of them throwing his cards down with a rueful shake of his head.

“How’d a man like you get so quick at cards?” she’d asked him as he’d tossed back his fifth or sixth glass, staring at the crumpled mess of bills on the table.

He’d looked up at her then, face sharply shadowed by the brim of his hat and the guttering lantern above. A sharp, pointed shrug--all angles, this man--and he’d stood, towering above her, carefully counting out the bills. After she’d watched him leave, steady on his feet, she’d looked down and realized he’d left more than half the pot behind.

The blind piano man starts up a local favorite, and the ranch hands drift away to the bar, seeking to lighten their wallets a few rounds. She hops down, touches one on the chest, and whirls him away for a dance.

She can feel his eyes watching her, dark and steady.

When the song ends, he is gone, and his table is clean.

* * *

“I know where we should go.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“You’ll like it once I tell you--”

“--shut up.”

* * *

Will introduces them, a sharp, unfamiliar wariness beneath the saloon owner’s easy grin.

Later, she passes a drink across the bar to a familiar face, a vague restlessness in her bones.

“So the captain’s back in town,” the young man says with a nod of thanks, wide eyes going wider still as he glances over his shoulder, “He was gone a long time.”

“Yeah?” Jyn asks casually.

The young man nods vigorously.

“Yeah,” he repeats, “No one ever really knows where he goes, but we all worry trouble’ll come around when he's gone.”

Jyn glances quickly into the dark corner of the saloon again.

“Seems like he and Will know each other pretty well,” she says.

“Oh yeah,” the young man replies, “Will’s about the only person the captain talks to. They were in the war together, I think.”

“Is that why he's called ‘the captain’?”

The young man screws up his face, slurping noisily at his drink, which leaves frothy bits behind in his beard.

“Probably,” he says after a loud gulp.

She leans back against the counter. It is late on a quiet Tuesday night, the saloon half-empty, a few businessmen lingering here and there, shrouded in thick clouds of cigar smoke. She eyes the captain’s back again, watches as Will laughs loudly, head thrown back, slouched casually against the table.

“What’s his name?” she asks, curiosity tearing the words from her mouth.

“Who, the captain?”

She nods.

The young man shrugs, tossing back the rest of his glass with a sigh of satisfaction, trailing a hand across his mouth.

“I don’t know,” he replies, pushing his glass back across to her, “I don’t think anyone knows.”

Mechanically, Jyn takes his glass and sets it in the sink.

“What a surprise,” she says.

The young man smiles crookedly at her, reluctantly sliding off his stool with a look at the clock on the back wall.

“I should be going,” he says, “It’s getting late.”

“Take care,” she replies.

He hesitates, then nervously sticks out his hand with a shy smile.

“I know we've just met, but I feel like I've seen you somewhere before,” he says in a rush, “I’m Bo.”

A strange swell of fondness rushes through her chest.

“Jyn,” she replies, taking his hand with a smile.

* * *

“Tell me later.”

“I think you’d like it.”

* * *

He is in the saloon most nights, brooding over a hand and several fingers, hat tipped down over his eyes.

She feels him watch her, scour her clean.

She lets him.

* * *

“West.”

“Save it.”

“What’s out west?”

“I said--save it.”

“You know what’s out west?”

“I don’t care.”

“Australia.”

* * *

He lingers one night, rigid shoulders slumped, hunched over the table in the far corner.

She watches him watch her.

Will watches them both, sharp, full of nameless hope.

She slaps her rag down on the counter and pulls off her apron, crumpling it up and stalking across the room. At his table, she yanks a chair out with a screech and sits, eyes fixed on his.

She leans in, tight and hard.

“My father was at Gettysburg,” she says.

He says nothing but does not withdraw.

“I feel like I’ve seen you before,” she says.

He looks at her a moment longer, eyes bright and tired.

“We lost at Gettysburg,” he replies, sharp and ragged.

“We both did,” she replies.

His lips thin, heavy creases tightening across his face.

He reaches for his glass.

She seizes his wrist.

* * *

“I think you secretly wanted to know, so I told you. Australia.”

“ _That’s_ your great idea?”

“The latest in a long line.”

“Australia’s no better than here!”

“That’s all _you_ know.”

* * *

They sit together some nights now, never close enough to touch, never speaking, not really.

They talk.

She hovers over his shoulder, eyeing his hand, betraying nothing.

Will watches them, sadly.

He thinks he has seen them before too.

* * *

“Name me one thing.”

“They speak English in Australia.”

“They do?”

“That’s right, so we wouldn’t be foreigners. And they ride horses. And they've got thousands of miles to hide out in--and a good climate, nice beaches, you could learn to swim--”

“Swimming’s not so important.”

* * *

He disappears for a week, a month, several months.

She pretends not to worry.

They’d never spoken about it. About--

Them.

Or what might have been them.

When he returns, he falls all sixteen hands from Kay’s withers and crumples to the ground, half-dead, her name on his lips.

* * *

“It’s a long way, though, isn’t it?”

“Everything’s always got to be perfect with you.”

“I just--”

“Will you at least think about it?”

“Alright.”

* * *

Will hides him in his bedroom when the lawmen come ‘round, searching for a greaser on a tall, black horse, armed and dangerous.

“Fuckin’ amigo robbed us blind,” one of them says, pale-pink skin flushed with sweat, “Winged ‘im though. Bled like a fuckin’ pig.”

“Been chasin’ this one all the way up from Galveston,” his companion adds helpfully.

Jyn pushes Will behind her, pressing her mop into his hands. She inclines her head deferentially.

“I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for him, gentlemen,” she replies.

“You do that for us, young lady,” another pale man says, “Wouldn’t want any harm to come to a pretty little thing like you. They’s dangerous folk, them Mexicanos.”

“Oh,” she says loudly, smiling sweetly over the audible snap of the mop handle in Will’s hands, “I _know._ ”

* * *

“I think I'd like Australia.”

* * *

The captain continues to bleed like a stuck pig all over Will’s bedsheets until the lawmen leave and Jyn can ride across town on the tall, black horse to fetch Will’s wife from her offices.

“Stay here,” she orders Will, who, torn, grips damp bedhseets in one hand and his revolver in the other. “They’re looking to shoot someone, and you’re a much bigger target than I am.”

Will doesn’t reply, just sinks, defeated.

* * *

“I knew you would.”

* * *

When he wakes, he sees her first.

She slaps him across the face. 

He smiles.

* * *

“How--how would we get there?”

“You’re the one with all the big ideas. Come up with something.”

* * *

She keeps her room above the saloon.

He keeps his place out under the stars.

And yet--

Closer, they draw ever closer, until the moon fills her nights with sounds of sighing silence, a reluctant hope for a new dawn.

The blind piano man says nothing when they dance alone behind him, silent and careful, but she is certain he sees.

Will sees too, and his heart aches.

* * *

“We’ll fly.”

“Well, that’s something new.”

“No, it’s not.”

* * *

“The money,” she asks him one night in the middle of the week, “What do you do with all of it?”

He stares into his glass, allowing himself to drown, just for a moment. His lip curls, bitterly.

In that moment, she hates him.

“I have debts,” he replies.

“Must be a lot of them.”

“Yes,” he says sharply.

* * *

“I’ve seen the stars.”

* * *

She’s always known, somehow. She wasn’t surprised.

Each death, he’d answer for.

And each death, he’d repay.

He would not live with himself otherwise.

* * *

“The stars, huh?”

“Yeah. Stars, suns, and--and moons.”

* * *

They dance together now, often, laughing in each other’s arms.

She savors these unguarded moments, these rare, sudden swells of emotion.

Because she understands.

* * *

“So we’ll fly to Australia.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s pretty far west.”

“Have to be careful we don’t go too far. Might end up right back here.”

“Or just drop right off over the horizon.”

“What horizon?”

* * *

He hasn’t left Scarif in months, and they see each other every night.

They talk.

They speak.

They listen.

* * *

“Hear that?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re late.”

“They’re not the only ones.”

* * *

“Let’s go somewhere,” she says one night, watching him absently count out his winnings, tuck them away, another debt, another life.

He raises an eyebrow, hiding a faint smile in his mustache.

“Where?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” she says, “West.”

“West,” he repeats.

I suits him, she thinks.

“Somewhere new,” she continues, “Somewhere--”

“--far away,” he finishes quietly, almost too quietly for her to hear.

“Yeah,” she says, familiar and alien all at once, “Somewhere far, far away.”

When he allows himself to smile, it comes out sad.

They both know.

They’ve always known.

Each other.

* * *

“I’m sorry.”

“You never even told me your name.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

* * *

He leaves again without warning.

This time, when he doesn’t return,  she finds him.

Or--

They find each other.

* * *

“No. I guess not.”

“Not anymore.”

* * *

They might have kissed, once.

* * *

He drags his eyes open.

 _I'm tired_ , they say.

“I know,” she replies, “So am I.”

He sucks in a ragged breath.

“Australia,” he says.

“Yeah.”

He turns slowly to look at her, eyes glazed in the fevered explosion of a setting sun, a rising moon. She pushes his damp hair away.

Outside, the jingling of bridles mingles sweetly with the thunder of feet, the rasping of barrels, the cocking of flints.

Sharp, fractured demands cloud the air.

Neither of them looks away.

Hope fades, shadow falls.

She can see their time spread out together like slivered glass, finely constructed, finely shattered.

They say nothing, but she hauls him to his feet, a strangely familiar weight against her shoulder.

He breathes shallowly, fingers slick on the grip of his revolver.

He wants to say something, she knows. Wants to, badly.

She wants him to say it too, but she will not break.

Not when they’re nearly done.

He sees, and he understands.

She takes her revolver, snaps the cylinder open and shut.

And again, open and shut.

She smiles at him, though she can barely see.

He takes her hand, takes a shuddering breath.

 

Together, they burst out to greet the rising moon.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes [here](https://ibohe.tumblr.com/post/160314159951/into-the-west).


End file.
